Govt pacifies opposition with fund promise

MUMBAI: The Congress-NCP government on Wednesday tried to wriggle its way of out of allegations that additional funds have been diverted to ruling MLAs by hinting that necessary monetary provisions were made for the Opposition benches as well. But the assurance by the treasury bench failed to cut ice with the Opposition, which disrupted the proceedings of the House three times before CM Prithviraj Chavan was forced to make a statement on the floor of the Lower House.

"My office is looking into complaints of non-allocation of funds to certain constituencies. I want to make it clear that a large chunk of funds was diverted towards drought relief and therefore money could not be spent on infrastructure work," Chavan told the House, adding that the government has only sought to correct this imbalance by giving excess funds, especially for road works on demand from MLAs without looking at their party affiliation. The proceedings returned to normalcy after Chavan promised to get rid of anomalies in the supplementary budget.

The state assembly has witnessed pandemonium over the last two days over allegations that the Congress-NCP has discreetly introduced additional funds to the tune of Rs 10 crore for every ruling MLAs by way of various schemes undertaken by state bodies and departments. This has been done within the latest proposed supplementary budget. The government has sought the House nod for an additional Rs 8,000 crore, an enhanced allocation over and above the original plan outlay of Rs 47,000 crore.

Leader of the Opposition Eknath Khadse said the government had assured Rs 3 crore to every Opposition MLA for local development work. This was to be withdrawn from the "safe advance", he said.

"Our concerns should be immediately addressed," he said.

MNS leader Bala Nandgaonkar said the Bombay high court had in an earlier judgment of 2009 warned the government of not introducing any bias in fund allocation. "We have had two meetings with the chief minister this week but no promise has been given, this is a clear case of contempt of court," he said.